Hut hut hut hut....

While not quite as earth shattering as Greg's announcement of a new Beyond Good & Evil game, I was equally excited today to learn there will be a new Tecmo Bowl released for the Wii next year. Although it's overly simplistic and graphically inferior to pretty much every sports game released today, the original Tecmo Bowl games are still some of the most entertaining football games ever. I still fire up Tecmo Super Bowl on my PSP every once in a while (via a nifty SNES emulator).

IGN broke the news and there is next to no actual information about the game other than the confirmation it will be made. I'm still excited though, I haven't really played a football game since EA killed the genre with it's exclusive NFL license and endless boring Madden rehashes. Let's hope it makes creative use of the Wii's motion controls!

Baby Talk and the Holy Spirit

No, that title doesn't refer to the latest Indiana Jones movie or a hot new inspirational self-help book. In reality it's just about a couple of recent, highly enjoyable events in my life. And just to mix things up, I'll start with the last one first!

This past weekend was my daughter Coral's First Holy Communion. For the non-Catholics out there, this is the holy sacrament where a child takes the body and blood of Christ for the first time. Now, I'm not a super religious person, but I do hold to my traditions and this is an important one for all of my family. Cori looked beautiful and she was very poised throughout the entire Mass. She did make me laugh a bit at the end, as she asked me if she could go pee about five minutes before receiving Communion. As much as would have liked to relieve her, there was no way she was getting up at that stage of the game. So, she toughed it out, took her first Communion and then sprinted for the restroom directly after. She always has a way of making events memorable!

The reception was held at our home afterwards and one of the best nights I've spent with friends and family in a long time. Everyone ate, drank, laughed and just enjoyed each other's company for a few hours. We don't entertain at our house very often but I'm glad we did, it was nice that everyone could have a good time in our home. You can find some pics of the gala event here.

Now, on to the second part of my post, the wonderful phenomenon of baby talk. My youngest daughter Camryn is 10 weeks old now, and is quite the chatterbox for such a little person. I'm not just talking about the standard baby cooing that all infants will start vocalizing around six weeks old. This is seriously full blown baby-to-parent communication. I swear she's trying to imitate what we're saying and form words of her own. The eyes are excited, the mouth is working, the tongue is trying to make the sounds and she's chatting away. If her little body were capable of it I'm confident she would be talking in complete sentences already.

Now I know what you're thinking. This is just daddy gushing about his perfect baby, everyone's baby makes noises at that age and no baby can actually talk at only ten weeks. Ok, maybe that's sorta right, but I don't believe it :) I'm pretty sure she knows what exactly what we're saying and is really a little adult trapped in a baby's body. I'm betting her first actual words will pop out in about six months, and it'll be something like "May I have an additional four ounces of that exquisite formula?" Seriously.

Game Review - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is the latest in a series of games based on and around the events of the original Final Fantasy VII. This game, for the Sony PSP, is actually a prequel to FFVII and is centered on Zack Fair. While he only appeared in flashbacks in the original game, Crisis Core explores his character further and his influence on Cloud and Sephiroth.

The game consists of two main components: the primary Story mode and a side-quest style Mission mode. The story mode is the meat of the game and is where you’ll be getting attached to these now iconic characters all over again. Mission mode, on the other hand, is a long series of one-off mini levels that have you battling for unique materia, equipment and even bosses as you go. There are roughly 300 missions in this mode and each take about five minutes to complete.

In my opinion, Mission mode was a genius addition to the game, especially on a handheld system when 5-10 minutes might be all the time you have for a quick game. Not only can you knock out a few missions and get that all consuming sense of accomplishment, you can also build your character for the encounters you’ll face in Story mode. All of the leveling and equipment you gather applies to both modes of gameplay. Even after completing the main story mode, I still want can’t leave the world of Crisis Core thanks to these nifty little missions.

The gameplay here is actually pretty simplistic. This is real-time combat, not the turn based fare we know and love from most of the other FF games. So, this plays roughly similar to FF XII except you only control one character. You can queue up moves as you fight and scroll through abilities, materia, and potions with the L/R triggers. There are no complex combos or mini-games to learn, however you must understand the type of monster you are fighting and adjust your tactics accordingly. Materia and gear must be equipped before an encounter so this keeps you constantly thinking about how to best outfit Zack as you progress through the game.

Graphically this game is amazing. I’d say it’s right on par with God of War: Chains of Olympus in being one of the top two best looking games for the PSP. The in-game graphics are superb, with excellent characters, backgrounds, monsters and spell effects. The scenes that present the major materia summons are breathtaking and the CG portions of the game are straight out of Advent Children, so they are as good or better than anything you’ve seen in the theater. Most of the in-game cinematics are even done right in the game engine and everything still looks amazing. Square is one of those few developers that can perfectly capture emotion with their animation. I found myself locked into the facial animations of the characters during these scenes, just because they were so perfectly expressive.

As with most RPG’s, Crisis Core is fairly lengthy. I completed the game along with about 50% of the side missions in just over 35 hours, and could probably have done the core game alone in 25. For a handheld title this is pretty impressive, especially considering the tons of in-game and CG cut-scenes packed onto the disc.

Of course, the real reason to play any FF game is for the dramatic storyline. This game does not fail there, and even knowing the gist of what I should expect, Square Enix once again sucked me in with stunning visuals, incredible CG cutscenes and even the humor mixed in with the over-the-top Japanese style dialog. I really enjoyed Zack’s clichéd characteristics, for some reason in these games you just couldn’t have it any other way.

There is a ton of replay value here as well. Once you complete the game you can go back and replay it on Hard mode, while keeping your DMW, materia and stats. There is also the aforementioned Mission mode. There is a final boss in Mission mode not included in the main game, Minerva, who is undoubtedly the most difficult boss in the entire game. Clocking in with over two million hit points, it’ll take a lot of grinding and materia fusing to defeat her. I plan on working my way towards this goal now that I have the main campaign out of the way.

If you are a RPG fan, or a Final Fantasy Fan, or just looking for a great game to play, you should really try Crisis Core. Adam Sessler be damned, this is one of the best games for the PSP and would make a kick ass PS2 game as well.

Is this thing on?

So, um, it's been a while since I've even thought to post here. Not that I haven't wanted to, but this little person, namely my now two-month-old daughter, popped into my life and things just haven't been the same since. I think my brain is just now returning from Super Happy Fantastic Baby Land, so I plan on posting more of my favorite random things here again. I think my first post back will be a game review (shocking!), then some comic book updates (uncanny!) and then whatever falls out of my head after that.

So, I am off to do some writing and pretend to work, and will leave you with a picture of my new favorite distraction.